Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

"I can't believe it's possible," Ellis said vaguely. "Who could have built such an incredible contraption?"

"If not the United States, it has to be of British or German origin."

"Who can say? She flies no flag."

As they watched, the strange object slowly slid beneath the waves until it vanished from view. The Kearsarge passed directly over the spot where it sank, but the crew could detect no sign of it in the depths.

"She's gone, Captain," one of the seamen called to Hunt.

"Keep a sharp eye out for it," Hunt shouted back. "Some of you men take to the rigging for a better view."

"What do we do if she reappears?" asked Ellis.

"If she won't heave to and identify herself, we'll pour a broadside into her."

The hours passed and sunset came, as the Kearsarge cruised in ever-widening circles in a fading hope of finding the monster again. Captain Hunt was about to break off the pursuit when a lookout in the rigging shouted down to the deck.

"Monster off the port beam about a thousand yards, heading our way."

The officers and crew rushed to the port railing and stared out over the water. There was still enough light to see it clearly. It appeared to be coming directly toward the Kearsarge at a very rapid rate of speed.

During the search, the gun crews had stood patiently, their great muzzle-loaders primed and ready to fire. The gunners on the port side quickly ran out their guns and sighted on the approaching apparition. "Allow for her speed and aim at that projection aft of her bow," Merryman instructed them.

Adjustments were made and the gun muzzles depressed as the monster loomed in the sights. Then Hunt yelled, "Fire!"

Six of the Kearsarge's eight guns roared, their explosive blasts shattering the air as fire and smoke spouted from their muzzles. Staring through his binoculars, Hunt could see the shells from the two

big eleven-inch pivot guns smash the water on each side of the baffling thing. The nine-inch smoothbores added to the geysers erupting around the target. Then he saw the shell from the twenty-pounder rifled gun strike the monster's back, bounce into the air and ricochet across the water like a skipping stone.

"She's armored," he said, stunned. "Our shot glanced off her hull without making a dent."

Unfazed, their nemesis aimed its bow unerringly amidships of the Kearsarge's hull, increasing its speed and gathering momentum for the blow.

The gun crews frantically reloaded, but by the time they were ready for another broadside, the thing was too close and they could not depress their muzzles low enough to strike it. The detachment of Marines aboard the ship began firing their rifles at the assailant. Several of the officers stood on the railing, grasping the rigging with one hand while firing their revolvers with the other. A typhoon of bullets merely glanced off the armored hull.

Hunt and his crew stared in disbelief at the nightmare that was about to ram the ship. Transfixed by the long cigar-shaped vessel, he gripped the railing to brace himself for the inescapable collision.

But the expected shock never came. All any of the crew felt was a slight shudder beneath decks. The impact seemed little different from a slight bump against a dock. The only sound was the faint crunch of shredding wood. In that frozen moment of time, the unearthly thing had slashed between the Kearsarge's great oak ribs as cleanly as a murderer's knife thrust, penetrating deep inside the hull just aft of the engine room.

Hunt gaped in shock. He could see a face through the large transparent view port on the pyramid-shaped housing on top the underwater ram. The bearded face had what seemed to Hunt to be a sad and melancholy expression, as if the man inside felt remorse for the disaster his strange and bizarre vessel had caused.

Then the mysterious vessel quickly backed off and fell away into the depths.

Hunt knew the Kearsarge was doomed. Down below, seawater poured into the Kearsarge's, aft cargo hold and galley. The gaping wound was almost a perfect concave hole through the hull planking six feet below the waterline. The torrent increased as the warship slowly began to list on her port side.

The only thing that saved her from immediately foundering was the bulkheads. In keeping with naval regulations, Hunt had ordered them sealed as if the ship were going into batde. The inrush of water was contained, but only until the bulkheads gave way to the crush of tremendous pressure.

Hunt swung around and stared at a low coral island not two miles away. He turned to the helmsman and shouted. "Steer for that reef off the starboard beam." Then he called down to the engine room for full speed. His main concern was for how long the bulkheads could hold back the flood of water from gushing into the engine room. While the boilers were still able to make steam, he just might have time to run his ship aground before she sank.

Slowly, the bow came around, as the ship picked up speed and set a course for shallow water. First Officer Ellis did not need a command from Hunt to prepare the boats and the captain's gig to be lowered. Except for the engine-room gang, all crew members were assembled on deck. To a man, they focused their eyes on the low, barren coral reef that was nearing with agonizing slowness. The propeller thrashed the water as the boilers were fired by the stokers in a near frenzy. They shoveled coal with one eye on the open grate and the other aimed at the creaking bulkhead, all that stood between them and a horrible death.

The single screw thrashed the water, driving the ship toward what everyone hoped was salvation. The helmsman called for help in fighting the wheel as the ship became sluggish with the escalating weight from the incoming flood and the list to port that had increased to six degrees.

The crew stood at the boats, ready to board them and abandon ship at Hunt's expected command. They shifted uneasily as the deck sloped ominously beneath their feet. A leadsman was sent to the bow to throw out a lead weight and sound the bottom. He called out the depth in fathoms.

"Twenty fathoms and rising," he yelled out with the barest trace of optimism.

They needed another hundred-foot rise in depth before the Kearsarge's keel would strike bottom. It seemed to Hunt that they were approaching that tiny strip of coral with the pace of a drunken snail.